Ring of Steel: Fare Gates at BOS, BON, & BBY

Yeah, that is crazy talk on the south side.

On the North side there is nothing like that. At least that I have seen. The trains aren't there during rush hour until 10 minutes prior to departure. On the north side we have the mob of people follow familiar conductors onto the plat form, or the train is delayed as soon as as one starts pulling into the "regular" platform. Those people drive me nuts. I admit I will sometimes board early, but I wait until all passengers have got off the train and I'm usually one of the last people standing around inside north station as most everyone else has walked out already and everyone else who boards just walk onto the platform as they arrive to north station.

Tonight train 173 was ready to board at 5:55 and the MBTA Rail app said now boarding on Track 2 at that time. All passengers had already exited the train and platform and conductors were already onboard the train. However, they didn't announce the train boarding on the PA until 6:02 giving the masses 3 minutes to board which is just crazy I think. And you bet, we didn't depart on time. We left a couple minutes late.

saulblum wrote:

RenegadeMonster wrote:Was also surprised to see the ticket checkers for forcfukly blocking anyone trying to board the train before it was announced on the PA. Arms out pushing people back trying to sneak by them.

I'm no lawyer, but if a Keolis employee touches you to forcefully stop you from proceeding, is that not assault?

If an employee physically blocks a platform and you forcibly shove past them, that's assault. If the employee pushes back, that's arguably self defense. I'm no lawyer but I've seen and learned of many such cases, that claim will go nowhere.

I'm no fan of this policy at all myself, but fighting with the people who are doing the work isn't going to help anything.

RenegadeMonster wrote:Yeah, that is crazy talk on the south side.

Tonight train 173 was ready to board at 5:55 and the MBTA Rail app said now boarding on Track 2 at that time. All passengers had already exited the train and platform and conductors were already onboard the train. However, they didn't announce the train boarding on the PA until 6:02 giving the masses 3 minutes to board which is just crazy I think. And you bet, we didn't depart on time. We left a couple minutes late.

That's ridiculous; you want the passengers to board as soon as possible.

Only saw them Tuesday at North Station. I haven't seen them the rest of the week though a co worker of mine said they checked his train last night.


Is this a random thing? How is this organized?

It seems they are playing this off as a "Safety" measure and don't mention fare evaders now. At lease the Keolis Staff when discussing complaints about this new tactic with passengers. We had a good decision on the train this morning about it. (We as the passengers on the train amongst our selves).

Meanwhile, my pass is getting checked no more often than every other trip on the way into the city.

Wow, just wow.

Tonight there were a few people sitting out on the benches on the platforms for track 1 & 2. One elderly person with a cane and a few people reading their books minding their own business.

When the ticket checkers moved over to tacks 1 & 2 one of them went out on the platform and made them all come back inside north station. One person gave them a earful and a transfer office came to assist with telling that person that they need to come back inside.

One person that came back in screamed at them “You guys are awful”

AgIn they mentioned being on the platform before a train boards was never allowed before and they they were never supposed to be on the platform before. It’s a stately issues.


Well, why are there benches out on the platform and why are they still there.

So I voiced my friendly opinion about this whole program yesterday and mentioned there are dozens of better ways about going about it and I don't agree with how they are handling this situation.

Basically, they just apologize for the inconveniences and said this is only temporary. They will be installing manual gates like on the subway in the near future.

When I brought up that I thought it was not cool how they made all the people sitting on the benches outside come back inside the answer was that they are passed the ticket check line. They are in a area that they shouldn't be until after their tickets have been checked. They wont have access to the platform once the gates are installed until after their tickets have been checked.

The conductor on my train also hinted last night that it wont be long before we see them at the rest of the stations on the line.

Tonight at North Station they had the rope stanchions set up in away that roped off, completely blocked access to any of the platforms except ones which were currently boarding or when a train arrives. No way for anyone to sit on the benches if they wanted to.


Also, what I found to be very awkward is they didn't check tickers on either the 6:05 Newburyport or Reading Train. The ticker checks and transit police were all standing forming a wall on unoccupied platforms.

Also because the two 6:05 trains were the only trains at North Station (minus the Down Easter), when that announced boarding for the 6:05 reading train first a little after 6 everyone inside north station poured out on to the platform for the Newberyport train at the same time. I did it too as the sea of people were pushing past me and I was getting taken for a ride whether I wanted to board yet or not. A good 100 people in font of me by the time I got on the platform. When we were walking out on the platform, someone who had to be a Keolis supervisor or manager was on the train talking to the crew. She sounded the trains bells and honked the horn to get everyones attention walking on to the platform and shouted "Excuse me! You can't board yet!"

I overheard tonight a member of Keolis telling a passenger complaining about the ticket checks that they work and are doing their purpose. So far they have made a difference of on average $10,000 more worth of mTicket activations a day since put in place. I all BS on this figure. It it's a true figure, it shows that the conductors are not doing their job or need more help on the trains.

The problem is that if you have a paper ticket, and it is not collected, you can reuse it. Why would you switch from a system that gives you free rides to one that doesnt? Obviously, people expect to get a free ride if no one comes by to check.

The solution is simply to use a global best practice. Require all tickets to be validated before boarding.

While the current "enforcement" does push digital activation, it does not solve the issue that an uncollected paper ticket can be used again.

The global best practice is that all paper tickets get stamped with a date and time on the platform. If the paper is not collected, it still expires after 90 (or 120) minutes because of the stamp.

There was overcrowding on my inbound train this morning.

It was impossible for the conductors to move through the orange line like sardine can to collect tickets from Salem on.

I know for a fact a lot of people "got a free ride" this morning because they never activated their tickets or had them punched. I think there is a lot more loss in situations like this than there is fare evasion. I bet almost all fare evasion is people reusing tickets that were not checked.

Gates or all the ticket agents at the entry way to the platforms at the Boston stations are not going to solve the above issue.

What they need to work on is proper staffing levels on the trains to ensure the conductors have the time to check all tickets. We also need increased capacity so we don't have people standing in the aisle making it impossible for the conductors to walk through the train.

Things I see that are unacceptable

1. Only 2 Conductors on a 6 or 7 car set.
2. Even worse when it's only 1 conductor
3. Wildly varying capacity of sets. You can have 6 cars which includes 2 double deckers and a 4 car set of all flats the next day.
4. All to often delays or cancelations due to unreliability leading to overcrowding
5. There should be enough capacity where if a train has to take on two trains worth of people from two stops (for example, a Newburyport Express train taking passengers from both Beverly and Salem from two trains because the Rockport train was delayed 40 minutes) without running out of room to fit people on to the train in Salem and and Standing room only for those that managed to get on in Salem.
6. Off peak / weekend trains. Whenever I have been on them only 1/2 the time does a conductor every come by and check my monthly pass.
7. Also, not to mention people start to stand blocking the aisle when there are 2 people in each 3 seater and 1 in each 2 seater.

I bet most lost fares are from inbound trains or inter zone passengers due to the crews inability to check all tickets.

We need to work on that, not the "Ring of Steel" in Boston.

If you're against the gates / checking, it looks like bad news. Apparently the predictions by Keolis are coming true.

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/fare-verification-spurs-electronic-ticket-sales/

Bruce Mohl, editor of CommonWealth magazine wrote: According to Keolis, system-wide sales of M-Tickets increased fairly significantly over 16 days in September compared to the average for the same days of the week over an eight-month period from October 2016 through June 2017. The increases ranged from a low of 12.1 percent on Wednesday Sept. 20 to a high of 36.2 percent on Monday Sept. 25.

For more (from the FMCB meeting Monday), see page 8 and 9:
https://d3044s2alrsxog.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/fmcb-meeting-docs/2017/october/2017-10-02-fmcb-keolis-commuter-rail.pdf

In case that link changes, refer to "Commuter Rail Update by Keolis" on https://www.mbta.com/events/1154" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think they are still getting scammed by people with mTickets and possible single ride and 10 ride as well.

Today, and once last week I had someone sit beside me who had a zone 3 mTicket. I get off at Salem, the last zone 3 stop. Next stop Beverly, zone 4.

These people with the Zone 3 mTicket did not get off at Salem. I had to request for them to let me out of the Seat after parked at Salem. And they just scooted back into the seat after I got out. I was one of the last off the train at Salem tonight and they were still sitting in that seat when the train pulled out.

I think people are buying lower zone tickets Outbound than they are actually using.

Edit: Pretty sure someone had a zone 2 pass mTicket too since the program started who stayed on passed Salem now that I think a bout it more.

Just sent a complaint into the MBTA about people doing this. Let's see if they respond.

enterprise11 wrote:If the CR moved to a proof-of-payment system....<snip>

MBTA IS implementing POP with AFC 2.0. Which makes this 'interim' ring of steel even more maddening to me.

See page 8 of this presentation:
https://d3044s2alrsxog.cloudfront.net/s ... pdate.pptx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MBTA is going in the right direction on fare collection. Keolis is being allowed to implement a backwards interim system that isn't integrated with or helpful in the context of AFC 2.0.